People & Culture

Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre brings history home

Inuit Heritage Trust’s William Beveridge and Elder Sakiasie Sowdlooapik explain the importance of bringing Inuit artifacts home to Nunavut

  • Published Jan 20, 2025
  • Updated Jan 27
  • 1,535 words
  • 7 minutes
[ Disponible en français ] [ ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ ᐊᑐᐃᓐᓇᐅᔪᖅ ]
Momentum for the Inuit Heritage Centre has picked up since the winning design for the building was announced in July 2023. Denmark-based architectural firm Dort Mandrup will design the building. (Rendering: Courtesy Dorte Mandrup © MIR)
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Every province and territory in Canada has its own museum, with one notable exception: Nunavut. However, this is set to change as efforts to establish the Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre gain momentum.

The origins of the proposed centre can be traced back to Article 33 of the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, which calls for the establishment of cultural centres and the restitution of art, artifacts and other collections from museums and galleries across Canada and beyond.

William Beveridge, the executive director of the Inuit Heritage Trust, began working on the project alongside the Government of Nunavut in 2002. In the early years, progress on the heritage centre was slowed by the many competing needs of a young territory — the Government of Nunavut had to prioritize housing, infrastructure and schools. Eventually, the government shelved plans for the dedicated building.

In 2019, Beveridge and the Inuit Heritage Trust decided to step in and lead the project, supported by regional Inuit organizations and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI coordinates and manages Inuit responsibilities set out in the Nunavut Agreement and ensures that the federal and territorial governments fulfill their obligations).

The push for a building has been slow but steady, with a significant momentum shift happening in July 2023 when Denmark-based architectural firm Dorte Mandrup Architects was chosen to design the centre after winning an international design competition. In June 2024, staff travelled to Iqaluit, the selected site for the future centre, to present the architects’ plans, address community questions and conduct essential on-the-ground work to advance the project, which proponents hope will be built over the next five to seven years.

Iqaluit-based journalist Dustin Patar sat down with William Beveridge and Elder Sakiasie Sowdlooapik, an Inuit Heritage Trust board member, to talk about why this project is increasingly important and what it may look and feel like.

William Beveridge, the executive director of the Inuit Heritage Trust, began working on the Inuit Heritage Centre project more than two decades ago. (Photo: Dustin Patar)
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There has been a lot more talk about this project recently. Can you tell me a bit about the excitement surrounding it?

William Beveridge: A lot of people don’t realize our Nunavut collection is being stored down South. We have a huge collection, over 200,000 items in Gatineau alone, and then the artwork is in Winnipeg. So when we talk about bringing this collection home and the different types of programs we can run in the Inuit Heritage Centre, there are a lot of people excited about that and want it to happen.

Our culture and heritage are really important for Inuit, but we’ve changed in a very short period of time, from the ’60s and ’70s to today. We’ve adapted very fast and we work in a very Western society now, but we can see that we’re starting to lose some of our heritage, some of our culture — especially in the younger generation — and this has a deep impact on our social lives, our social well-being and our cultural well-being.

As you know, we have a lot of issues in Nunavut caused by so much change in that very short period of time. We have a lot of social problems, suicide being one of them. It’s one of the highest rates in the world. So, I see the centre as bridging that gap between the Elders and youth.

By having the centre, we can teach our youth where we come from and what Inuit did. It’s an incredible story because to live in such a harsh environment and to be able to survive and thrive, you have to be very adaptable and intelligent, and we’re losing that self-identity, that pride, as we’re moving forward — moving ahead in this new world. But we can’t; we have to take that with us. We need to know where we come from.

Elder Sakiasie Sowdlooapik, an Inuit Heritage Trust board member, says the centre is hugely important to Nunavummiut, but also for all Canadians. (Photo: Dustin Patar)
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As those Elders keep getting older, how is that impacting the work on the centre?

Sakiasie Sowdlooapik: Our Elders are passing on very fast. When they pass away, stories, knowledge and even language are disappearing very fast. So, by taking on this project, even though it’s very big and will utilize a lot of resources, we have to move on quicker.

I went to federal day school after being relocated from an outpost camp, where I used my traditional knowledge from my parents in daily life: how we hunt, how we harvest animals, how we butcher the animals, how to read snow when you’re travelling — all of this knowledge disappeared very, very fast. From then on to this day, we lost a lot of knowledge.

Having this facility will, I think, really tremendously help many, many Nunavummiut. Not only that, but all Canadians.

Like William said, there are thousands of artifacts out there that I am not using, or my kids are not using them. School students are not utilizing them — or even the teachers — because they don’t see them, they don’t feel them.

William Beveridge: These Elders that we have, they’re like our true Elders who lived on the land before colonizing. So, of course, there will be Elders afterward, but those will be the new-generation Elders who lived in the communities. So, these Elders that we have today have so much knowledge.

They were born and grew up on the land, with no hospitals or communities. They lived the life of Inuit. They still have so much knowledge while they’re here, so it is very time sensitive. We need to build this centre as quickly as possible.

 

In community consultations, Elders said the building's design should represent the landscape. The winning design is "informed by the landscape and the movement of the snow and the wind," according to a statement by the architect, which also noted that its shape "follows the curves and longitudinal features of the landscape." (Rendering: Courtesy Dorte Mandrup © MIR)
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You’ve talked a bit about the number of artifacts in the South, but I imagine you’ve had the chance to go through and see some of them. Can you walk me through some of the things that you’ve seen?

William Beveridge: There are all kinds of things — from the smallest little ivory carvings to a large qajaq or umiak. There’s [women’s] clothing, like amautiit or atigiit [parkas] with beads on them. There are kamiit [boots], and there are all kinds of artifacts. I’ve had the privilege of going to Gatineau [Quebec] to see the collection [currently held at the Canadian Museum of Nature’s Natural Heritage Campus].

I’ve brought our board members and other Elders with us, and it’s such a great feeling to see their expressions when they go into a room full of artifacts they’ve never seen and their eyes just open up. Some get a bit emotional, others get really happy, and they want to talk about the collection and the artifacts they want.

They talk about what different items are used for; they want to share their knowledge.

So it’s a really great feeling having people visit the collection, and I can only imagine, once we do have this heritage centre, how amazing it’s going to be working with Elders, having them teach what these collections were, what they were used for, and passing that knowledge down to the youth.

This project has been in the works for a long time. What are some of the biggest barriers to getting this done?

William Beveridge: The biggest barrier is getting funding; it’s not cheap. With the number of artifacts and collections that will be brought back, we need a centre that’s big enough to house the collections, store them, showcase them and use them.

The centre is fairly large, about 6,000 square metres. The cost is very expensive because you need special lighting, special climate control, UV protection, security, fire suppression, and all that stuff. It’s not your typical building, so there are extra costs involved.

From the architectural design to developing the land to the construction of the building to figuring out the different programs that could run in the centre — it all comes to about $150 million. That’s the biggest barrier.

I’ve seen the architectural renderings, but could you walk me through the front doors? What do you think you’ll imagine and feel?

Sakiasie Sowdlooapik: When we did the consultations with the community, they told us very clearly that the centre has to represent the landscape and how it’s laid out — that it’s not just going to be cubes. It’s going to be something very different — beautiful from the outside and the inside.

William Beveridge: So when you look at the centre [from the outside], the drawings incorporate that. You can see a sod house, a qammaq. You can see the qajaq at a certain angle of the building. You can see the Northern Lights if you look at the building from the side.

When you walk in, it has to be welcoming and [allow the visitor to] visualize the collection. There will also be different programs running in the centre, where we have a woodworking shop, a butchering shop, as well as a sewing room. These are in addition to exhibits where you’ll be able to look at the collection and have Elders and youth interacting with each other.

This centre will provide Inuit with a voice to tell our own story, not from another museum in the South or somewhere else. But the most important part, I think, is that we’ll be able to do our research and our interviews, and then we can tell our story from our perspective — for Inuit from Inuit.

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